Part 76 (1/2)

She caught her breath, flattened out with a little s.h.i.+ft around Catlin and let go a long sigh. ”I've been working so hard. You have to forgive me. CITs do this kind of thing. Oh, G.o.d, the Minder. I hope to G.o.d you didn't re-arm the system-”

”No, sera, not yet.”

”That's good. d.a.m.n. Oh, d.a.m.n, my sides hurt. That thing-calling the Bureau-would just about cap the whole week, wouldn't it? Blow an a.s.signment, miss the whole d.a.m.n point. Amy's making a fool of herself and Sam's walking wounded-CIT's are a b.i.t.c.h, you know it? They're a real pain.”

”Sam seemed happy,” Catlin said.

”I'm glad.” For some reason the pain came back behind her heart. And she sighed again and wiped her eyes. ”G.o.d, I bet that got my makeup. I bet I look a sight.”

”You're always beautiful, sera.” Florian wiped beneath her left eye with a fingertip, and wiped his hand on his sleeve and wiped the other one. ”There.”

She smiled then, and laughed silently, without the pain, seeing two worried faces, two human beings who would, in fact, take on anyone she named-never mind their own safety.

”We should get to bed,” she said. ”I've got to do that paper tomorrow. I've got to do it. I really shouldn't have done this. And I don't even want to get up from here.”

”We can carry you.”

”G.o.d,” she said, feeling Florian slip his hands under. ”You'll drop me- Florian!”

He stopped.

”I'll walk,” she said. And got up, and did, with her arms around both of them, not that she needed the balance.

Just that she needed someone, about then.

Ari bit her lip, perfectly quiet while Justin was reading her report. She sat with her arms on her knees and her hands clenched while he flipped through the printout.

”What is this?” he asked finally, looking up, very serious. ”Ari, where did you get this?”

”It's a world I made up. Like Gehenna. You start with those sets. And you tell them, you have to defend this base and you teach your children to defend it. And you give them these tapes. And you get this kind of parameter between A and Y in the matrix; and you get this set between B and Y, and so on; and there's a direct relations.h.i.+p between the change in A and the rest of the s.h.i.+fts-so I did a strict mechanics model, like it was a fluxing structure, but with all these levels-”

”I can see that.” Justin's brow furrowed, and he asked apprehensively: ”This isn't isn't Gehenna, is it?” Gehenna, is it?”

She shook her head. ”No. That's cla.s.sified. That's my problem. I built this thing with a problem in it, but that's all right, that's to keep it inside a few generations. It's whether all the sets change at the same rate, that's what I'm asking.”

”You mean you're inputting the whole colony at once. No No outsiders.” outsiders.”

”They can get there in the fourth generation. Gehenna's did. Page 330.”

He flipped through and looked.

”I just want to talk about it,” she said. ”I just got to thinking about whether some of the problems in the sociology models, you know, aren't because you're trying to do ones that work. So I'm setting up a system with deliberate problems, to see how the problems work. I changed everything. You don't need to worry I'm telling you anything you don't want to know. I just got to thinking about Gehenna and closed systems, and so I made you a model. It's in the appendix. There's a sort of a worm in it. I won't tell you what, but I think you can see it-or I'm not right about it.” She bit her lip. ”Page 330. One of those paragraphs is Ari's. About values and flux. You tell me a lot of things. I looked through Ari's notes for things that could help you. That's hers. So's the bit on the group sets. It's real stuff. It's stuff out of Archive. I thought you could use it. Fair trade.”

It was terribly dangerous. It was terribly close to things that people weren't supposed to know about, that could bring panic down on the Gehennans; and worse.

But everybody in Reseune speculated on the Gehenna tapes, and people from inside Reseune didn't talk to people outside, and people outside wouldn't understand them anyway. She sat there with her hands clenched together and her stomach in a knot, with gnawing second thoughts, whether he would see too much-being as smart as he was. But he worked on microsystems. Ari's were macros-in the widest possible sense.

He said nothing for a long while.

”You know you're not supposed to be telling me this,” he said in a whisper. Like they were being bugged; or the habit was there, like it was with her. ”Dammit, Ari, you know know it- What are you trying to do to me?” it- What are you trying to do to me?”

”How else am I going to learn?” she hissed back, whispering because he whispered. ”Who else is there?”

He fingered the edges of the pages and stared at it. And looked up. ”You've put in a lot of work on this.”

She nodded. It was why she had blown the last a.s.signment. But that was sniveling. She didn't say that. She just waited for what he would say.

And he did did see too much. She saw it in his face. He was not trying to hide his upset. He only stared at her a long, long time. see too much. She saw it in his face. He was not trying to hide his upset. He only stared at her a long, long time.

”Are we being monitored?” he asked.

”My uncles,” she said, ”probably.” Not saying that she she could. ”It might go into Archive. I imagine they take every chance to tape could. ”It might go into Archive. I imagine they take every chance to tape me me they can get, since I threw them out of my bedroom a long time ago. Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter what they listen to. There's no way they'll tell they can get, since I threw them out of my bedroom a long time ago. Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter what they listen to. There's no way they'll tell me me no, when it comes to what I need to learn. Or give you any trouble.” no, when it comes to what I need to learn. Or give you any trouble.”

”For somebody who held off the Council in Novgorod,” Justin said, ”you can still be naive.”

”They won't do it, I'm telling you.”

”Why? Because you say so? You don't run Reseune, your uncles do. And will, for some years. Ari, -my G.o.d, G.o.d, Ari-” Ari-”

He shoved his chair back and got up and walked out.

Which left her sitting there, with Grant on the other side of the cluttered little office, staring at her, not quite azi-like, but very cold and very wary, like something was her fault.

”Nothing's going to happen!” she said to Grant.

Grant got up and came and took the report from Justin's desk.

”That's his,” she said, putting a hand on it.

”It's yours. You can take it back or I can put it in the safe. I don't think Justin wants to teach you any more today, young sera. I imagine he'll read it very carefully if you leave it here. But you've grounded him. I don't doubt you've grounded me as well. Security would never believe I wasn't involved.”

”You mean about his father?” She looked up at Grant, caught in the position of disadvantage, with Grant looming over her chair. ”It doesn't make any difference. Khalid's not going to hold on to that seat. Another six months and there won't be any problem. Defense is going to be sensible again and there won't be any problem.”

Grant only stared at her a moment. Then: ”Free Jordan, why don't you, young sera? Possibly because you can't? - can't? -Please go. I'll put this up for him.”

She sat there a moment more while Grant took the report and took it to the wall-safe and put it inside. Then Grant left.

Just-left her there.

So she left, and walked down the hall with a lump in her throat.

He was better, at home, with a drink in him. With the report in his lap-he had gotten it from the safe, and when Grant said that it was dangerous to carry about, he had said: So let them arrest me. I'm used to it. What the h.e.l.l?

So he sat sipping a well-watered Scotch and reading the paragraph on 330 over and over again. ”G.o.d,” he said, when he had gone through it the second time, sifting through the limitation of words for the precious content. It was valuable-was like a light going on-in a small area, but there was nothing small or inconsequential where ideas had to link together. ”She's talking about values here. The interlock of the ego-net and the value sets in azi psych and the styles of integration-why some are better than others. I needed this-back at the start. I had to work it out. d.a.m.n, Grant, how much else I've done-is already in Archives, just waiting there? That's a h.e.l.l of a thought, isn't it?”

”It isn't true,” Grant said. ”If it was, Ari Ari would have been doing the papers.” would have been doing the papers.”

”I think I know why I interested her,” he said. ”At least-part of it.” He took another drink and thumbed through the report. ”I wonder how much of this is our our Ari's. Whether it's something Ari senior suggested to her to do-and gave her the framework on-or whether Ari just-put this together. It's a graduation project. That's what it is. A thesis. And I can see how Ari must have looked at mine-when I was seventeen and naive as h.e.l.l about design. But there's a lot more in this. The model work is first rate.” Ari's. Whether it's something Ari senior suggested to her to do-and gave her the framework on-or whether Ari just-put this together. It's a graduation project. That's what it is. A thesis. And I can see how Ari must have looked at mine-when I was seventeen and naive as h.e.l.l about design. But there's a lot more in this. The model work is first rate.”